c clergyman of the
Church of England. He must have been a man of compelling character, for
he it was who brought the Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford,
out of Socinianism, which, though a minister of the Church of England,
he professed, into the Calvinistic view of things, as Scott himself
tells us in his book _The Force of Truth_; and it must not be forgotten
that it was to the writings of this same Scott that Newman tells us (in
his _Apologia_) that he owed his very soul. Newton, like many of his
fellows, had no sort of doubt as to his right to act as a director of
souls, nor of his profound knowledge of how they should be dealt with.
Yet it is to be remembered that, whilst the Catholic priest is obliged
to undergo a long and careful training before he is permitted to take up
this perilous task, Newton and those of his kind undertook it without
any training whatever. Cowper, as everybody knows, was carefully and
kindly tended by Mrs. Unwin, a woman a good deal older than himself,
against whose character no word of reproach was ever uttered, the widow
of an old friend of the poet. Newton wanted to drive Mrs. Unwin out of
his house, but here at least Cowper rebelled and showed his very just
annoyance, Newton actually urged Cowper to abandon the task of
translating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind
from thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious
character, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a
rule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences.
Newton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving
people into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove
one poor victim to an asylum he says: "I hope the poor girl is not
without some concern for her soul; and, indeed, I believe a concern of
this kind was the beginning of her disorder. I believe," he continues,
"my name is up about the county for preaching people mad ... whatever
may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen, in different
degrees, disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly
gracious people."

Let us turn to the other example which I propose to select, that given
by Mr. Gosse in his truly remarkable work _Father and Son_, one of the
most faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be
an extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great
power and gifts if she had been give